


After Q comes R

by Mycroffed



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Kidnapping, M/M, Torture, actually, dark!Q, this is not a happy story, this is the most violent thing I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 07:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5155838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycroffed/pseuds/Mycroffed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q is kidnapped to get Bond to back off from a mission. But what will be the consequences?</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Q comes R

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the tags, this isn't a happy story. It's violent and dark. For a list of triggers, see the end notes.
> 
> This was meant to be a 1000 word drabble. Yeh right...
> 
> But as always, thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting!

_Why was there never a calm day for him?_ Q wondered as he was guiding Bond through the Tube once more. There was an Underground network hiding in one of the unused Tube stations and after claiming responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks, the MI6 had turned their attention to them and sent one of their best agents to catch the man. Bond still hadn't memorized the map of the Underground - not that he expected that of the man, that would be ridiculous - so it was the Quartermaster's job to make sure he took all the right turns to get to the terrorist's den.

The group had already made it quite clear that if MI6 wouldn't back off - and especially Bond - that they would have it coming, that they would make it very, very personal. But Q hadn't realized just how personal it would become.

Bond arrived to the den only to find it empty, which caused Q to think that there was a spy in their midst, someone who had either infiltrated MI6 or who had joined the Underground network. He didn't have the time to go after said spy, since he had to try and figure out where they would strike next. He tried to think what would be personal for the Secret Service and the only thing he could think of was Mallory - also known as M. He could possibly be in danger.

Q informed Bond of what he had figured out and told the agent that he was going to tell their boss to be safe, to make sure that nobody without a full background check could get to him. He got his earpiece out - he didn't want Bond to hear the conversation that would follow - and made his way to M's office. There was only one problem: he never reached it.

The hall was completely deserted - granted, it was three am and the only reason that Mallory was still there was because of the threat - so Q didn't pay attention to his surroundings, he just assumed that he was safe. That was his first mistake.

He realized that he should've paid attention when he was hit around the head right as he reached out for the door to M's office. He lost his balance and that was the moment his attacker took the chance to blindfold him, cuff him and put some duck tape over his mouth. Even if he hadn't been concussed and wanted to protest, he couldn't.

It took another hit around the head - with something hard and metal this time - before the lights went out.

 

*

 

Bond returned to the office after he'd found everything there was to find in the den. Half an hour was all it took to conclude that the place had been abandoned in a hurry and collect a few DNA samples along the way. He was now going to bring them to Q before heading home for at least a few hours of sleep. He could use that.

When he found Q-branch completely deserted, he frowned. Normally, Q insisted on always having someone on site and most of the time, it turned out to be him. Bond even checked the bed in the Quartermaster's office, a place where the man was known to sleep if he thought it too late to return home, but no Q in sight.

He vaguely remembered him saying something about going to Mallory about the terrorist organization, so that was where he checked next, only to discover that Q had never arrived. Both M and Bond agreed that they needed to locate their Quartermaster before they could take the next step. Calling him seemed only logical.

"I am not available r-" Bond didn't even let Q's voice finish the message as a sense of fear settled in his stomach. Q was always available. He never turned off his phone. One glance at M told him that his boss thought exactly the same and there were no words needed for him to understand his next mission. _Find Q_.

 

*

 

When the darkness slowly lost its grip on him, he had lost track of time and place. The duck tape seemed to be removed - his lips stung from the rough action that must've accompanied it - and his lips were dry, so he licked them briefly. It didn't seem to help, but it gave him something to do as he analyzed the situation he found himself in. A quick glance of the room didn't really inform him of much new information, except that he found himself in a very, _very_ small room without windows and one door - which was probably locked.

_Was this what they meant when they said they'd make it personal? Kidnap him?_ Q couldn't help but hope that he was wrong, that this was just a prank or maybe - hopefully - another organization who had decided to kidnap the Quartermaster. But no, his brains quickly interfered with that trail of thought. If he'd been on the street, he could've been the victim of a mugging, of a kidnapping for a ransom or something, but since he had been taken from inside of MI6, he doubted that.

He pushed himself up as much as he could - his hands weren't cuffed anymore either, he discovered as he moved - before dizziness hit him. His second mistake. The hit on the back of his head had probably given him a concussion or at least a very beautiful bruise. As he lowered himself again, he realized that he found himself in a pickle.

 

*

 

Time had gone by - Q had no idea how much exactly, since they had taken his watch, his phone and any other device that could inform him what time it was - before someone entered the room. The only reason that the Quartermaster knew that it was a lot, was because his stomach had started grumbling quite loudly.

The door opening was the best sound that Q had heard all day - he was incredibly relieved to hear something like that, no matter how ridiculous it sounded - and the footsteps were even better. He glanced up at the man standing over him before he was hauled to his feet and dropped on a chair that someone must've brought in, because he was pretty sure that it hadn't been there before.

"Why did you take _me_?" He asked, softly, not wanting to upset whoever had taken him.

The only reply he got was a slap on his right cheek, which made his head snap to the left. Q stretched his cheek, trying not to groan in pain. _So that was how it was going to go, huh? Well, if they wanted to play it the hard way, then so would he_.

"They'll be looking for me." He tried to sound tough this time, as if this had happened so many times to him already, that it was becoming a weekly occurrence for him and that he would get through this. The tremble in his voice betrayed him.

This time he got a huff and a slap on his left cheek, which made the dizziness return. Q let his head hang in an attempt to make it go away again. He didn't need something distracting him right now.

"You don't talk until we ask questions." The man said in heavily accented English. Q thought that he could pinpoint the accent to a Dutch speaking person. So this was an international organization, interesting. What could he do but take in all information he could, especially if it would help him discover who was behind all this.

"Then ask questions." Q spat the words in the man's face, who pretended - Q didn't really spit - to wipe the spit away before landing a fist in the Quartermaster's stomach.

This time, Q couldn't hold back the groan and the man seemed content that he got at least some reaction out of his victim.

"How much do you know about us?" The man asked, the question accompanied by another hit. "You got close, how did you find us?"

It took Q a moment to get his breath back. "We barely know anything." He said softly as he glanced up at his attacker. "We know you mainly operate in the Underground tunnels. We also knew where your base was, but not anymore."

That earned him a few more hits - Q had no idea why, he had told him the truth, that really _was_ all they knew - which made him double over in pain, black spots entering his vision. The man took his chin in his hand. "You are the example." He whispered before resuming his task of beating Q up. He mainly focussed on his face - it was the most visible, Q guessed - and his stomach - the easiest to hit vital organs.

The black spots took over almost his entire vision before he zoned out.

 

*

 

Bond had almost no clues as to who had taken the Quartermaster. The only thing he got was a security camera who might have recorded the entire thing, but he had no Q who could explain to him how the bloody thing worked and how he could make it show him what he wanted. M was already busy to call the entire Q-branch out of bed, but the first Minion had yet to arrive. So Bond just activated Q's computer, hoping that it would maybe show him something.

The first screen he got asked a password and had a voice activated lock as well. Bond cursed at the damn thing - why did Q have to be so big on security ever since the Silva incident? - before moving his hand to close it again.

"Bond, James." A mechanical voice said as his hand touched the computer. "Access granted."

He frowned slightly at the computer as the screen changed, revealing a screen filled with Q standing in his office.

"Bond. If you get this message, that means that something happened to me. Either I'm sick or I'm in hospital or maybe even worse, but you need my help, as always, and I'm not there. I'm going to give you a choice of three things and you need to pick which one you need most right now."

Q disappeared for a moment, only to be replaced by a screen with three choices. _Security camera's. Gadgets. Advice_. Without a moment's hesitation, Bond chose _security camera's_.

The screen went black for a moment before being replaced with live feed of every camera in the entire building.

"How the hell do you manage this, Q?" Bond whispered with a newfound respect for the Quartermaster's job. He scanned through the images until he spotted the door to Mallory's office. He clicked on that and the picture enlarged, giving Bond the option to rewind and pause. It took him a few minutes before he found the right time and place, but soon he had the delight of watching how Q was hit around the head by a masked man - not once, but twice - with a metal baseball bat.

That was the moment he promised the man that he would do anything and everything to get him back. The underground organization had made it personal and he was going to make them pay for what they had done.

 

*

 

When Q got to his senses again, he was holding a knife and was standing over the body of the man who'd been interrogating him. He heard voices of other man coming from outside the room, shouting rather loudly as they rushed over in his direction. His hands were yanked behind his back, roughly, in a manner that would suggest that he'd done something horrible.

He glanced down, only to see his body covered in blood. _Was_ he _the one who had killed that man_? What the hell had happened? He didn't have time to think about it, because before he knew what was happening, the beatings had started again.

He tried to blink a few times and realized that he had a black eye which had swollen in a way that pressed his eye shut. He wished that he had time to make an inventory of all his wounds, but with the beatings going on, he was easily distracted and groaning in pain all the time. The men didn't seem to have any mercy this time, it was almost as if they weren't going to even try and keep him alive, in contrary to the previous time.

He zoned out again, but he didn't lose control like earlier - he needed to think about that, but in a later time when he wasn't this distracted. He could barely stand on his own legs, barely stand up straight and that was when the beatings stopped. The men dragged him out of the room, not even caring enough to blindfold him.

There was a car waiting for them once they left the Underground and Q was dropped unceremoniously on the back seat before the driver took off. Q could barely see the outside, but the shadows that moved past seemed familiar.

Time moved _strangely_ while he was in the car. He swore that it were mere minutes that they'd been driving, but when they stopped and he spotted the familiar building in front of him, he realized that it must've been much, much more than that. The care didn't even stop, they just dropped him on the ground without a second's thought. He groaned as he hit the ground, but he found himself unable to move as he laid curled up in front of the MI6 building.

 

*

 

Q drifted in and out of consciousness until he finally spotted a shadow standing over him. He started to mumble one word, over and over again. The meaning clear enough that even someone from outside MI6 would realize that he was in need of help.

"Ambu... Ambu... Ambulance." He whispered, over and over again.

The man was fumbling with his phone before he had even finished the word and as soon as he spoke, he realized that it was Tanner who had found him and the ghost of a smile appeared around his lips. After the first call, the man quickly made another, this time to Mallory, to inform the man that Q had been found again. The two of them exchanged some brief questions and answers before the call was ended.

Tanner sat down next to Q and gently took his head in his hands. "What happened to you, Holmes?" He whispered softly. "Why did they take you and not anyone else?"

Q was unable to answer that question, not only because he couldn't move, but also because he simply did not know the answer. He was not offended by the fact that Tanner - one of the three people within MI6 who knew it - used his real name to comfort him.

He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, Mallory was standing next to him, smiling sadly at his Quartermaster. "Hello again, Q." He said softly. "The ambulance's not that far away."

Q nodded weakly before drifting away again, this time deeper than before. If no ambulance would arrive soon, he'd probably never wake up again.

 

*

 

As soon as Bond got the message that Q had been found, that he was safe again, he rushed back to MI6, to the Med Bay, expecting to find his Quartermaster there, charming the nurses into giving him a bit more morphine than strictly allowed, but no Q to be found there.

He grabbed the arm of the first doctor he saw. "Where's Q? Is he here somewhere?"

The doctor tensed up, something that the medics always seemed to do around double oh agents. "He's not here, 007. They found him in front of the building, but his wounds were too severe to be treated here. They brought him to Bart's." The man was nervous as he tried to pull his arm free from Bond's grasp. The agent let him go and left again, this time to the hospital to see to his Quartermaster's wounds.

 

*

 

Q felt better as he woke up again. The pain that had been coursing through his body seemed to have left him and instead of the hard ground, he seemed to be laying on a soft bed, a warm pillow supporting his back. He blinked a few times before someone next to him sprung into action. He could barely move his head, but soon Bond moved into his line of sight and he let out a relieved sigh.

"How're you feeling?" He asked, his voice softer than Q had ever heard it.

"I'm..." It still took him some effort to form words. "I'm okay, I think." He didn't feel okay at all, but there was no reason to worry Bond more than absolutely necessary.

"You don't look okay, Q." The agent said, while his hand gently stroked Q's curls. "You look like you've been beaten to a pulp last night. What the hell have they done to you?"

Q wanted to answer that, he really did, but he just had no idea what exactly had happened. "I... I don't know."

"Well, you're in a hospital now and you're going to get better soon enough." He whispered in Q's ear, in an attempt to comfort him. "Rest, Q. Sleep. Before you know it you'll get out of here again."

Q wanted to grasp Bond's hand, squeeze it gently, but both his arms were covered in casts and he couldn't move his hands to save his life. It was as if Bond could read in his eyes what he wanted to do, because he reached out and took Q's hand in his. He sent a brief smile his way before he closed his eyes again, completely at ease around Bond in the hospital.

But his rest was short lived, because a few seconds later - or that was what it felt like to him - there was a commotion outside his room before the door swung open to reveal two men. Bond jumped on his feet, not letting go of Q's hand, to stand protectively in front of the Quartermaster. "Who the hell are you?" He demanded as he stared at the others.

"Oh, just step aside." The dark haired man said as he pushed Bond into the chair next to Q's bed. "Sherringford, I told you that you'd end up in here one day."

Q had known who the two men were the moment they stepped through the door. "I know... I know you did, Lock." He mumbled, weakly reaching out for Bond's hand again. "This is not my fault."

The man, Sherlock, scoffed at him. "It's never your fault, brother dear. Every time you fell out of a tree, you blamed the birds sitting in it for pushing you out of it."

"Don't talk to him like that!" Bond jumped up again, standing between Q and his brother. "He was kidnapped and beaten, just to warn us not to come closer to an Underground network."

Now the ginger haired man stepped closer, placing a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "Now, now. Let's not get into a fight. Why haven't I been alerted?"

"I thought that MI6 could handle it without your or Sherlock's help, Mycroft." Q's voice sounded stronger and more determined. "Clearly, I was mistaken."

"I will be talking to your superior, Sherringford." Mycroft said, looking at his brother with determination to put this situation right again. "He won't know what hit him."

"I'm coming with you." Sherlock said, even more stubborn than the other Holmes brother. "I'm going to find this organization and I'm going to make them pay for what they did to my baby brother."

"I'm not a baby." Q mumbled, more to himself than to his brother.

"You'll always be my baby brother, Sherringford." Sherlock turned back to Q. "And I'm not going to leave you like this without making sure that the ones responsible pay for what they did to you. Come on, Mycroft." He walked out of the room, followed quickly by the eldest Holmes brother.

It was only as the two brothers had left the room that Bond relaxed again before he turned back to Q. "Sherringford? Your name is Sherringford?"

"Shut up." Q mumbled, not wanting to talk about it. "It hasn't been my name ever since I joined MI6 and adopted the title Q as my name. And I'd like to keep it that way."

"Well, at least it brought back some of your fire." Bond smiled before taking Q's hand once more. "Your voice, it's stronger again."

"Shut up, Bond." Q said, a bit louder, but a smile was clearly audible in his voice.

 

*

Q's recovery went faster than the doctors - and anyone else, really - had anticipated. Within three weeks, he was already back on his feet, demanding to be let back into the MI6 building, even though his doctors had forbidden him to go back to work. Three weeks and twenty-three hours after Q had been admitted to the hospital, he walked out of the hospital, looking as if he hadn't almost died a short while ago. The doctors - even though they tried - couldn't stop him as he left to go back to work.

He walked straight to his office, smiling politely - nothing more - at everyone he met on his way there. Once he was there, he rebooted his laptop, updated him and went back to work. Well, that was his plan anyway. It was a shame that things rarely went as planned.

His laptop was still updating and Q was working on one of the cars meant for Bond when said agent walked - stormed - into his office. "What the hell are you doing here?" He demanded.

Q looked up and the ghost of a smile appeared around his lips. "Hello to you too, James. And I don't know what you think that I'd be doing here, but I'm working." He almost added a 'duh' to it.

"You're supposed to be in the hospital!" Bond walked over to him, not even stopping to admire the car. "You're not ready to come back to work yet, you-" 007 stopped midsentence as he actually _looked_ at Q. "You look okay. No bandages, no visible wounds... How do you feel?"

"I feel fine. The doctors didn't see any reason to keep me in the hospital anymore." He lied smoothly. "So they let me go. And being at home alone wasn't what I was looking forward to, so I decided to come here and work on... well, just work really."

Bond shook his head slightly. "I'm still not convinced that the doctors should've let you go, Sherringford."

Q tensed up as he heard Bond use his real name. "Don't." He said, his voice cold and emotionless. "Don't call me that."

The agent noticed the change in Q's demeanour immediately, but he decided that it was simply because the man hated that name, nothing more. "I can't just call you Q all the time."

"Call me Ben then. Short for me third name Benjamin." Q relaxed ever so slightly, but still, he was acting strange if Bond compared him to how he'd been before all this had happened.

"Ben." 007 nodded. "Very well. Also, you've got three names?"

"Goodbye, Bond." Q said, making it clear to Bond that he was going to leave and preferably soon. He stared at the agent as he hovered in the doorway, but eventually, he left and let Q go back to work again.

 

*

 

Slowly but surely, Q became the presence he'd always been in MI6 again. He could always be found somewhere - most often in his office, sleeping or awake - and it felt like things went back to normal. For Q it did at least. He and Bond were still not where they had been before the kidnapping - Q blamed the fact that he had snapped a few times at him about not bringing back his equipment - but they were both working on that.

It was a full month after he'd left the hospital that he was informed that he'd go into the field again. The agent - Bond - needed tech support and he was the only one with the skills to help him. They needed to hack a server, but the only way to do that was from the inside out, so that's why he was involved. He knew his brothers would kill M - Sherlock would take care of that - or make sure he was fired - Mycroft's field - if something happened to him, so he wasn't too worried about himself. Besides, Bond would be there the entire time, M had assured him, there was no way that he'd get kidnapped again.

He prepared himself as good as he could - he even took a gun with him, one with a laser light that would tell him where his shot would hit - before going to find Bond. Together, the two of them went to the airport - Q had made sure he had some tranquilizers with him - and boarded a plane to Belgium. As soon as he was on the plane, he took the sedative and slept peacefully through the flight. If only he hadn't hated flying all that much.

 

*

 

Getting into the server room had been easy - too easy, perhaps - and Q immediately sat down behind the computer, starting to hack. Bond stayed in the only doorway, making sure that nobody got in while Q was still working. As soon as the security agents noticed their presence, the room was filled with shooting and sounds of fighting.

Q tensed up behind his laptop. He should've seen this coming, should've realized that this would be a big part of the mission. He should've prepared himself for this. He could feel something stirring inside of him, something he had never felt before. He glanced at Bond, who was still shooting the security people. Q turned back to his laptop, trying to push the feeling back down, but then he heard a click, announcing that James' gun was empty.

"Stay in the room, Q. I'm going to take the fight to them." He said before running out of the room.

Of course Q was going to stay in the room, did he look like he was stupid? He shook his head to himself. He might not be used to fighting scenarios, that didn't mean that he was going to act like a scared idiot who'd run as soon as he could.

He managed to hack the computer and get the data they needed within the next five minutes. He turned around to tell Bond the news as he heard someone walk into the room, but he wasn't faced with Bond, the only one he saw was a security officer. They stared at each other for a few seconds before the man attacked him.

As he saw him draw his gun, the world slowed down around Q. A headache hit him, which made him close his eyes and rub his eyes for a moment. As his eyes opened again, he knew what he had to do. It was as if someone else was in control of his body, someone who had been in this situation before and who knew exactly what to do. His gun was drawn before the other could blink and Q shot the man, over and over again until it was empty. The man was dead by then, but he couldn't stop himself. He grabbed his knife and started to stab the man in his chest, not caring that the blood soaked his clothes and splashed over his face and neck. This man _needed_ to die and the only one who could do it was him.

Once he was sure that he was dead, he left the knife in his chest and got up again. He turned to his laptop, the dark screen reflecting him. The right side of his face was covered with blood, but that wasn't what was the strangest. His eyes were dark - pitch dark - and his hair - even wilder than it usually was - had one white lock in it.

He heard someone else walk into the room and blinked a few times before turning around. Of course it was Bond.

"Everybody's taken care of Q, are you- whoa!" Bond looked up at the Quartermaster, seeing what he looked like - the blood mainly, because a quick glance in the laptop had confirmed that his eyes had returned to their normal hazel colour and his hair had calmed down as well. "Are you okay? What happened here?" Bond rushed to his side, worried about him, like a real friend would be.

"I... I don't know, Bond." Q said, softly.

_Of course you do_. A voice whispered in his ear, which made Q look around immediately, only to discover that nobody was there. _I'm inside your head, silly. You can call me R_.

"Get away from me." He said, he meant to say it to the voice, but it was Bond who heard it, of course.

"I won't, Q, I'm going to bring you back to London and take care of you. It's not easy, after your first kill. It does stuff to people and I can help you with that."

_But this isn't the first time you killed, is it, Q?_ The voice - R - smirked. _You killed that man when you were kidnapped and you_ enjoyed _it_.

Q nodded weakly at Bond, falling apart in front of his eyes. "Please... Take me away from here."

_That's not going to be enough, Q, dear. I'm going to be with you_ forever.

Bond nodded and grabbed Q tightly, guiding him back to the plane that would bring him back to London.

 

*

 

Q learned to live with the voice when they returned back to London. Bond didn't mention his small breakdown to anyone, which Q was particularly grateful for. He pushed the voice down and most of the time, he could live with it, ignore it, but sometimes, it needed to get out, it needed to take control for a while. That happened mostly when he was upset, when he was emotionally compromised. But he always felt it coming, so then he locked himself in his office, making sure that R couldn't get out and harm anyone he cared about.

Until today. It was a particular violent sneeze that covered up the headache that usually accompanied R's arrival, so this time, when it was R who opened his eyes instead of Q, he was free to roam around in the entire MI building, free to play with Q's little toys.

"Who shall I kill today, Q?" R asked the voice inside his head. "What part of your life will I destroy first?"

**Author's Note:**

> Q's kidnapped and gets tortured.  
> He kills a man in cold blood.  
> He develops a Dissisiative Identity Disorder.  
> I hope that these are enough triggers, let me know in the comments if I have to add more. (I'm new to these kind of stories).


End file.
